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I graduated SC in 91, I sat thru some tough games as a student including the FSU and Clemson losses. This is not even close. Yeah our D was awful, but at least we scored. We actually had a chance to be in this game a couple times. Nick Jones not being able to hold onto to that pass right before half hurt.

The offense will be fine. DT played ok, missed some throws though, he will get sharper. The O-line is good and pass protected well. The run game was abandoned early and worried about Mike Davis' injury situation.

The D - well, I don't like the scheme. I don't like how our DB's give a huge cushions. The LB's looked confused and out of place. The DL got no penetration. IT's not as if we are completely devoid of talent on D. We have players. The scheme is wrong and the coaching needs to step up. Our DB's need to press cover. That is how you slow down an A&M type offense.

It just seems too many times over the past couple seasons we are completely unprepared on defense and play way too passively. Last year's D should have been a beast and still we looked passive and confised at times. I like Ward, but something is not clicking.

I graduated SC in 91, I sat thru some tough games as a student including the FSU and Clemson losses. This is not even close. Yeah our D was awful, but at least we scored. We actually had a chance to be in this game a couple times. Nick Jones not being able to hold onto to that pass right before half hurt.

The offense will be fine. DT played ok, missed some throws though, he will get sharper. The O-line is good and pass protected well. The run game was abandoned early and worried about Mike Davis' injury situation.

The D - well, I don't like the scheme. I don't like how our DB's give a huge cushions. The LB's looked confused and out of place. The DL got no penetration. IT's not as if we are completely devoid of talent on D. We have players. The scheme is wrong and the coaching needs to step up. Our DB's need to press cover. That is how you slow down an A&M type offense.

It just seems too many times over the past couple seasons we are completely unprepared on defense and play way too passively. Last year's D should have been a beast and still we looked passive and confised at times. I like Ward, but something is not clicking.

Well said. But overall Ward has done an outstanding job here. Recruiting misses, bad evaluations & plain bad luck have contributed to what we witnessed Thursday night. Ward deserves the chance to fix these problems & I think he will do so. You take away his ability to recruit the Atlanta area & you will see some real problems on the recruiting trail, especially in the down years for in-state talent.

Fact is, in the SOS era we have won far more games with stellar defense than because we were some juggernaut offensive machine.

He knows the personel situation, but he doesn't sit in on them during film, and he doesn't micro manage them during individual. A head coach should be comfortable leaving his coaches to prepare their players without watching over every move. Ward and the defensive staff did a horrible job coaching these guys up for this game, however young they maybe. A&M figured the defense out quickly, and if they made adjustments on the USC defense, it was hard to find because Hill kept abusing the left side and middle of the field.

I would guess that he will be paying attention now. But I don't want to see him take time off from the offense because the offensive line and the running game needs some work too.

Folks, class of '56 here, so you know how far I go back. I remember back in the 40's sitting in the endzone watching and listening to the radio and hearing, "an inspired Demon Deacon rose up today..." Also remember watching a Miami team come in the week after losing their all American QB the week before and playing an unheard of freshman you torched us. I have seen many horrible games and to me this was the worst ever. If this same team shows up again, we will not get many W's, I just hope that does not happen!!!

It seemed to me like we were in a prevent defense instead of 3-4 most of the game. By that I mean we gave up the part of the field they usually do in the prevent. Maybe the guys didn't know what to do and went to something they understood instead.

You can't fault Ward for trying to innovate and make a change that he thought would make us better. HBC has been known to take those risks, too.

HBC's postgame comments make me think at some point he realized the 3-4 wasn't going to work and pointed that out to Ward. Maybe Ward stuck to his guns instead of caving into his boss and things got worse after the press started praising the 3-4. HBC would have come off as being defeatist if he came out against the 3-4 before it was tried in a real game.

We would be in a bad situation with a first-time head coach, but you have to think HBC may have already been working on a Plan B in case the 3-4 didn't work. He seemed more honest than upset to me in the PG presser, hopefully because he knew what was coming and already has a Plan B.

Folks, class of '56 here, so you know how far I go back. I remember back in the 40's sitting in the endzone watching and listening to the radio and hearing, "an inspired Demon Deacon rose up today..." Also remember watching a Miami team come in the week after losing their all American QB the week before and playing an unheard of freshman you torched us. I have seen many horrible games and to me this was the worst ever. If this same team shows up again, we will not get many W's, I just hope that does not happen!!!

Al you go back a long way. Class of '56 puts you at or about 90 yrs young. You have done well sir. Curious who you are referring to as the Miami unheard freshman. I recall Vinny Testaverde playing the 1986 game but I could certainly be wrong.

As for the loss, it was by 24 pts giving up a ton of yards. We've lost by more than 24 pts more times than I care to remember. Right now it is fresh & the fan base is/was totally shocked but we didn't get beat 59-0. Although it certainly seemed like it

Folks, class of '56 here, so you know how far I go back. I remember back in the 40's sitting in the endzone watching and listening to the radio and hearing, "an inspired Demon Deacon rose up today..." Also remember watching a Miami team come in the week after losing their all American QB the week before and playing an unheard of freshman you torched us. I have seen many horrible games and to me this was the worst ever. If this same team shows up again, we will not get many W's, I just hope that does not happen!!!

Folks, class of '56 here, so you know how far I go back. I remember back in the 40's sitting in the endzone watching and listening to the radio and hearing, "an inspired Demon Deacon rose up today..." Also remember watching a Miami team come in the week after losing their all American QB the week before and playing an unheard of freshman you torched us. I have seen many horrible games and to me this was the worst ever. If this same team shows up again, we will not get many W's, I just hope that does not happen!!!

Do you remember our lost to GA Tech 1988? That to me was our worst lost. We were highly ranked and got down 31 - 0 at the half before losing 34-0.

As I said previously, I am class of 91, so I sat thru the FSU massacre, the Clemson drubbing (49-0 I think) and the Ga Tech loss mentioned above. So I am a lot happier these days.

To clarify my previous post, I like Ward and he deserves a chance to fix this. And I am by no means claiming to know more than any coach, I just feel we should play an aggressive 4-3, with DB's who can press cover. This defense seems, well, too defensive, too passive - my two cents...

I can feel and understand everyone's pain on this game. I am old enough to know about all of our previous losses in the past, but never has the hype for us to be so good been stated before a game and we were ranked #9 in the nation and we played the FIRST EVER GAME ON THE SEC NETWORK BEFORE A NATIONAL AUDIENCE ONLY TO HAVE OUR BUTTS HANDED TO US!!! To make matters worse, Texas A&M could have scored at the end of the game as WE COULD NOT STOP THEM ON ANYTHING and thank goodness their coach decided not to score 7 more points. This has to rank up there with any previous seasons loss as we had so much riding on this game. We are in a terrible fix and unless our coaches can coach up a miracle, it could turn out to be a very, very, ugly season. We have no SEC Caliber Defensive Lineman on this team that I can see. We will be hard pressed to win against any good football team this year.

Folks, class of '56 here, so you know how far I go back. I remember back in the 40's sitting in the endzone watching and listening to the radio and hearing, "an inspired Demon Deacon rose up today..." Also remember watching a Miami team come in the week after losing their all American QB the week before and playing an unheard of freshman you torched us. I have seen many horrible games and to me this was the worst ever. If this same team shows up again, we will not get many W's, I just hope that does not happen!!!

Thank you. I'm not that far back but I believe it's the worst I've seen

As I said previously, I am class of 91, so I sat thru the FSU massacre, the Clemson drubbing (49-0 I think) and the Ga Tech loss mentioned above. So I am a lot happier these days.

To clarify my previous post, I like Ward and he deserves a chance to fix this. And I am by no means claiming to know more than any coach, I just feel we should play an aggressive 4-3, with DB's who can press cover. This defense seems, well, too defensive, too passive - my two cents...

I don't care what defense we play as long as we have good technique and fundamentals

Well said. But overall Ward has done an outstanding job here. Recruiting misses, bad evaluations & plain bad luck have contributed to what we witnessed Thursday night. Ward deserves the chance to fix these problems & I think he will do so. You take away his ability to recruit the Atlanta area & you will see some real problems on the recruiting trail, especially in the down years for in-state talent.

Fact is, in the SOS era we have won far more games with stellar defense than because we were some juggernaut offensive machine.

And who do you think evaluates those recruits, and missed on them??? Ward?

Do you think you could manage to recruit a DB or two every year if your salary was $500K+????? How hard can it be to maintain position groups?

The answer is that Ward's seat is very hot right now since Clowney can't cover for him any more. USC's defense is the laughing stock of the country after Thurs night, and that was the worst defensive performance I've ever seen.....ever!

And who do you think evaluates those recruits, and missed on them??? Ward?

Do you think you could manage to recruit a DB or two every year if your salary was $500K+????? How hard can it be to maintain position groups?

The answer is that Ward's seat is very hot right now since Clowney can't cover for him any more. USC's defense is the laughing stock of the country after Thurs night, and that was the worst defensive performance I've ever seen.....ever!

It is damn sure pretty close to the worst. I would put it on the level of the Wally Burnham defenses with the ducking of the heads and arm tackling. Absolutely baffles me how you can practice all spring and early August and not know that you players have such poor tackling skills. You are correct, I think we are the laughing stock on defense and unless we come out and shut down ECU, I will continue to feel this way. I still say, how in the hell do you get ready for the next game plan and correct poor fundamentals???

It is damn sure pretty close to the worst. I would put it on the level of the Wally Burnham defenses with the ducking of the heads and arm tackling. Absolutely baffles me how you can practice all spring and early August and not know that you players have such poor tackling skills. You are correct, I think we are the laughing stock on defense and unless we come out and shut down ECU, I will continue to feel this way. I still say, how in the hell do you get ready for the next game plan and correct poor fundamentals???

This is the thing I simply can't get past. Other posts here have pointed out that our D was said to look good in fall camp. That can ONLY mean our offense is awful as well. It's simply impossible to believe that Thursday night was the first clue our coaches had the D was no good. If so, what's the point of practicing? And, it's not that A&M was simply outplaying us. Our D just look confused, unsettled, out of place. Nobody knew what to do and A&M took advantage of it.

As much as the bad D concerned me, it's more concerning how no member of our multi-million dollar coaching staff anticipated it.

And who do you think evaluates those recruits, and missed on them??? Ward?

Do you think you could manage to recruit a DB or two every year if your salary was $500K+????? How hard can it be to maintain position groups?

The answer is that Ward's seat is very hot right now since Clowney can't cover for him any more. USC's defense is the laughing stock of the country after Thurs night, and that was the worst defensive performance I've ever seen.....ever!

Show me one shred of proof Ward's on the hot seat. BTW since we're now gonna start throwing people under the bus for recruiting misses. Who do you suppose evaluated Beecher, Smelley, Cade Thompson, Hillary, McCollum, the list goes on so long that Shaw is the 1st, and only, QB to finish his eligibility here. Thompson will be the 2nd. You ready to fire Spurrier too?